Various tubular flashlights have been developed which use a tubular battery casing for accommodating one or more cylindrical batteries. The batteries generally have one polarity terminal at one end and a second polarity terminal at the other end so that when the battery is fed into the battery casing, one polarity is disposed near the closed end of the casing. Generally, a conductive strip near the open end of the casing extends within the casing to contact a conductive compressive spring disposed at the closed end of the casing so as to provide an electrical path from the battery polarity terminal at the closed end of the casing to the area near the open end of the casing. The end of the conductive strip near the open end of the casing is generally adapted to make electrical contact to the switch for the flashlight or to one of the terminals on the flashlight bulb. As discussed above, the means for providing this electrical path for the battery polarity terminal near the bottom of the casing to the open end of the casing generally requires three separate components consisting of a conductive compressive spring, a conductive strip, and a conductive ring:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,798,440 to Robert Brindley illustrates a flashlight that employs these three separate components. Specifically, the flashlight discloses the use of a compressive spring disposed in the bottom of a closed end battery casing which makes electrical contact with one end of a conductive L-shaped conductive strip. The L-shaped conductive strip is disposed against the internal wall of the battery casing and its opposite end makes electrical contact with a conductive contact ring disposed within the open end vicinity of the battery casing. The use of these three separate components for providing the electrical path from the bottom of the casing to the open end of the casing requires that good electrical contacts be made between one end of the conductive strip to the compressive spring and between the opposite end of the conductive strip to the conductive ring. In addition, space has to be provided at the closed end of the casing to accommodate the compressive spring thereby requiring the overall length of the flashlight to be longer than what would be required if the compressive spring was not needed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a flashlight with means which are highly reliable and cost effective for providing an electrical path from the bottom end of a battery casing to an area near the open end of said casing.
It is another object of the present invention to replace the three component assembly consisting of a conductive strip, a compressive spring and a conductive ring that is normally used to provide an electrical path from the bottom end of a battery casing to its open end, with a single conductive coil spring member.
It is another object of the present invention to use a novel conductive spring for use in flashlights to provide an electrical path from the bottom of the battery casing where the end of the spring is adapted to contact one polarity terminal of a battery to an area near the open end of the battery casing where the spring is adapted to electrically contact the switch of the flashlight or one terminal of the circuit coupled to the bulb.
The forgoing and additional objects will become more fully apparent from the following description.